Don't let it get away!

The decision to sell a stock you've researched and followed for months or years is never easy. If you fall in love with your stock holdings, you risk becoming vulnerable to confirmation bias -- listening only to information that supports your theories, and rejecting any contradictions.

In 2004, longtime Fool Bill Mann called confirmation bias one of the most dangerous components of investing. This warning has helped my own personal investing throughout the Great Recession. Now, I want to help you identify potential sell signs on popular stocks within our 4 million-strong Fool.com community.

Don't sell on priceOver the past 12 months, Pacific Sunwear has risen 90.5% versus an S&P 500 return of 11.3%. Investors in Pacific Sunwear have every reason to be proud of their returns, but is it time to take some off the top? Not necessarily. Short-term outperformance alone is not a sell sign. The market may be just beginning to realize the true, intrinsic value of Pacific Sunwear. For historical context, let's compare Pacific Sunwear's recent price to its 52-week and five-year highs. I've also included a few other businesses in the same or related industries:

As you can see, Pacific Sunwear is down from its 52-week high. If you bought near the peak, now's the time to think back to why you bought it in the first place. If your reasons still hold true, you shouldn't sell based on this information alone.

Potential sell signsFirst, let's look at the gross margins trend, which represents the amount of profit a company makes for each $1 in sales, after deducting all costs directly related to that sale. A deteriorating gross margin over time can indicate that competition has forced the company to lower prices, that it can't control costs, or that its whole industry's facing tough times. Here is Pacific Sunwear's gross margin over the past five years:

Source: Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's.

Pacific Sunwear is clearly having issues maintaining its gross margin, which tends to dictate a company's overall profitability. Pacific Sunwear investors need to keep an eye on this troubling trend over the coming quarters.

Next, let's explore what other investors think about Pacific Sunwear. We love the contrarian view here at Fool.com, but we don't mind cheating off of our neighbors every once in a while. For this, we'll examine two metrics: Motley Fool CAPS ratings and short interest. The former tells us how Fool.com's 170,000-strong community of individual analysts rate the stock. The latter shows what proportion of investors are betting that the stock will fall. I'm including other peer companies once again for context.

Company

CAPS Rating (out of 5)

Short Interest (% of float)

Pacific Sunwear

**

22.1

Abercrombie & Fitch

*

14.2

Aeropostale

****

7.8

Urban Outfitters

**

15.2

Source: Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's.

The Fool community is rather bearish on Pacific Sunwear. We typically like to see our stocks rated at four or five stars. Anything below that is a less-than-bullish indicator. I highly recommend you visit Pacific Sunwear's stock pitch page to see the verbatim reasons behind the ratings.

Here, short interest is at a high 22.1%. This typically indicates that large institutional investors are betting against the stock.

The last metric I like to look at is the current ratio, which lets investors judge a company's short-term liquidity. If Pacific Sunwear had to convert its current assets to cash in one year, how many times over could the company cover its current liabilities? As of the last filing, Pacific Sunwear has a current ratio of 2.02. This is a healthy sign. I like to see companies with current ratios equal to or greater than 1.5.

Finally, it's highly beneficial to determine whether Pacific Sunwear belongs in your portfolio -- and to know how many similar businesses already occupy your stable of investments. If you haven't already, be sure to put your tickers into Fool.com's free portfolio tracker, My Watchlist. You can get started right away by clicking here to add Pacific Sunwear.

The final recap

Pacific Sunwear has failed three of the quick tests that would make it a sell. Does it mean you should sell your Pacific Sunwear shares today solely because of this? Not necessarily, but keep your eye on these trends over the coming quarters.

If you haven't had a chance yet, be sure to read this article detailing how I missed out on more than $100,000 in gains through wrong-headed selling.

Jeremy Phillipsdoes not own shares of the companies mentioned. The Fool owns shares of Aeropostale. Try any of our Foolish newsletter servicesfree for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.

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